


I Wonder If You Know What I'm Talking About

by captainangua



Series: SPN spec ficlets [5]
Category: Supernatural
Genre: Bisexuality, Case Fic, Coming Out, Dean Has a Sexuality Crisis, Dean in Denial, Demon Dean Winchester, Episode: s10e23 My Brother's Keeper, Gay Panic, Gen, M/M, POV Sam, POV Sam Winchester, Pre-Season/Series 10, Protective Sam Winchester, Queer Gen, Queer Sam Winchester, Queer Themes, Sam Winchester and Mental Health Issues, Season/Series 11, Season/Series 11 Speculation, Sex Work, Strippers & Strip Clubs
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-08-03
Updated: 2015-08-03
Packaged: 2018-04-12 16:44:24
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,528
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4487070
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/captainangua/pseuds/captainangua
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>When Dean's reluctant to return to a town he visited as a demon, Sam quickly finds that it isn't guilt keeping his brother away from the scene of his 'crimes'.</p>
            </blockquote>





	I Wonder If You Know What I'm Talking About

**Author's Note:**

> I swear I actually am writing the dcbb. And the other things.
> 
> But I just wanted to write this TOO because I have a lot of feels about the day that might not ever come in which the boys have a sexuality talk and dammit they could have gone so much more gay on demon!dean.

Sam waited until his brother had stopped the car and breathed out before speaking up again.

“Are you sure about this, Dean? We could call someone else-”

Dean snorted and didn’t turn to look at him. “We know any hunters we haven’t pissed off yet? Really? After Rudy?”

Sam didn’t have anything to say to that. Nothing he ever tried saying to make Dean feel better about his actions under the Mark, about _their_ actions in the attempts to remove it, were ever successful. Dean never apologised, that just had never been his way. No, Sam thought sadly, he would continue lashing himself over all of it for forever.

“I don’t mind going in on my own. You can go check the morgue while I-”

Sam watched carefully as Dean’s jaw twitched several times as he seemed to be wrestling with himself. Sam had no idea what it was Dean was so afraid of, of what it was in this place he claimed to have passed through for only one night as a demon that he didn’t feel up to facing. Sam knew better than to push him into telling – and he certainly knew better than to try and make him do something he didn’t feel comfortable with. God knew Sam was familiar with that feeling. He still had all the memories of being soulless, of being possessed – multiple times. He knew what it was to feel guilt over something that you’d done, but didn’t do – to have people recognise you that had never really known you at all.

If he could avoid putting Dean through that after the rest of the year they’d gone through, then that would be one thing they’d gotten right.

But Dean only rolled his eyes, showing something that almost resembled his old bravado as he swung them to look at Sam. “Don’t coddle me,” he said, and swung open the car door.

“ _Coddle_?”

“Sure, that’s what you were trying to do, baby me and… all that.”

“’All that’ being getting you to go look at the decapitated body on your own,” Sam pointed out as his longer legs brought him into sync with Dean as they reached the entrance to the strip club. It _would_ be easier with two interviewing instead of one. It sounded like there could be a lot of people in there – and it was an evening on a Saturday, they’d be getting ready for their show, not wanting to listen to what the feds, or the fake feds, had to say.

“Exactly. ‘M’a big boy, Sammy, I don’t need to get distracted by the cool corpses every five minutes to stay interested,” Dean said cheerfully, but his eyes were scanning the room already, and his eyes looked worried. What had he done here that had been so terrible? Sam wondered. Had he killed someone?

And Dean would never treat a woman wrong no matter what porn he favoured, but Dean as a demon had seemed to have an entirely different moral code, Sam thought, feeling a little queasy as he remembered that hammer swinging toward his skull.

Remembered closing his eyes, listening to the whirring of that scythe.

“Ok, let’s start on the bar staff – Dean?”

Dean was also looking over at the bar staff, and one in particular. A man wearing all leather and not very much of it was waving at him, smiling cheerfully. Sam watched with a kind of fascinated horror as Dean’s arm spasmed into something which might have been a wave, before Dean seemed to lose the ability to manage even that and instead muttered, “fuck, I’m not doing this,” and walked out of the door they’d just walked through.

Before Sam could think about following him, the guy from the bar had already walked over. “Hey, he alright?”

There was real concern behind the man’s fading smile, Sam registered in relief as he tried not to notice exactly how little the bartender had on. Surely whatever Dean had done here, it couldn’t be as bad as he was making out.

“Uh, he’s fine. Not feeling great, I think.” Sam took a deep breath in. “You uh, you guys know each other?”

“Well sure! I mean, I guess not really. I mean he never mentioned you – but hey he _was_ only passing through the one night, it was stupid hoping I guess…” The man was rubbing awkwardly at the back of his head, which seemed weird – he didn’t seem the type to be made easily bashful.

“Stupid hoping what?”

The man’s mouth fell open, before he smartly closed it again and smiled broadly. “So what’s with the suits, anyway? Folk don’t usually dress up to come in here…”

Sam smoothly brought out his badge, but didn’t introduce himself, partly because he couldn’t actually remember what name this one had on it. But the bartender didn’t seem to need any confirmation – his face had already blanched.

“You’re _cops_? Dean’s a _fed?”_

“Yes,” Sam said confidently, desperately hoping that would fit with whatever this guy had seen of Dean already. “I think when you must have met him my partner was… well, deep undercover.”

“Right,” the man nodded, still looking dazed. “Right, I guess that makes sense. Makes sense why he didn’t stay the extra night too. You uh, you guys staying long in town?”

Sam wasn’t imagining it. That was definitely hope shining out of the man’s eyes.

Sam coughed awkwardly. “Uh. Not long, I think. But I… I can ask Dean to give you a call while we’re here, if you’d like?”

“Right! Uh, I mean uh, sure, that’d… that’d be cool.” The guy was actually _blushing_ Sam noted with some amusement as he watched the bartender try to claw back some dignity and smile at him again. “Now uh – what do _you_ actually want from me today, Agent?” the bartender asked, and winked, leaning against a table.

The case. Sam had already forgotten about the case.

“We actually came to ask about Sarah. Do you remember her acting strangely at all before the night she disappeared?”

*

When Sam made his way back to the Impala, Dean was still sitting there, still parked, and when Sam got in to join him, he didn’t say anything.

Sam cleared his throat, the lack of music playing making him feel oddly self-conscious. “Y’know, Dean. I know… I know it’d be easier for us to pretend like that wasn’t you back when you were a demon. And we can keep doing that if you like. But…. But it doesn’t need to apply to everything you did, Dean. We don’t… we don’t need to pretend it away.”

But oh, how Sam wanted to. It wasn’t even the hammer, it was the words, the little jibes that had been so close to something Dean would have said anyway – so close to being reiterations of things that Dean already _had_ said. Because it was so much harder to pretend that those hadn’t come from Dean, not really.

But the fact was that all of it had, and this was one more part of it, one more part of Dean.

Dean sounded more hoarse than gruff by the time he answered. “Your point?”

“My point is that if you want to talk about this – about _Matt_ back there and what happened with him,” Sam didn’t miss the way his brother flinched as he said the bartender’s name, “then you can. I want to hear it.” Sam choked out a laugh and threw up his hands. “God Dean, when I knew you didn’t want to come here I thought – I thought you’d killed and _tortured_ people or something! This is actually the _best_ news-”

“What? That as a demon I had a few gay experiments?”

 _No one said anything about a few,_ Sam supplied internally, but decided not to voice. Instead he sighed. “No, good news because maybe you might actually get what I mean when I say…” Sam heaved in a breath. He _really_ hadn’t wanted to go here. He wasn’t sure he was ready for Dean to hear this – but Dean needed to hear _something_ to make him believe he wasn’t so alone... “When I say that I’m not straight.”

Dean’s head lifted sharply. Whatever he’d been expecting to hear it clearly hadn’t been that. Sam decided to use his moment of stunned silence to plough on before Dean could react. “So if you need to talk about this shit… I can do that. I can… I can be there, alright? About Matt, or, or Cas…”

Dean blinked at him a few more times. For years as a kid Sam had imagined everything his tough big brother might throw back at him if he ever tried to bring this up, and now here he was, still waiting to hear it.

“’Not Straight,’” Dean repeated flatly, and Sam held his breath. “Are you seriously trying to out-gay me right now?”

Sam let the breath go and then let himself laugh, and keep laughing. “Oh, I wouldn’t dare,” he managed. “Matt wants you to call him, by the way.”

Dean scowled and turned the engine on, then shrugged. “Well. Maybe I will.”

*


End file.
